Metadata

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Before 1990, the United States Supreme Court abstained from ruling on the dimensions of substantive and procedural due process limitations for punitive damages awards. However, the landscape changed in 1996 when the Supreme Court first employed substantive due process in BMW of North America, Inc. v. Gore to invalidate an award of punitive damages from a state court. In Gore, the Supreme Court outlined three guideposts to instruct courts reviewing punitive damages awards to protect tortfeasors from a state imposing a grossly excessive punishment by examining: 1) the reprehensibility of the defendant's conduct; 2) the ratio between the compensatory and punitive awards; and 3) a comparison of the punitive award with the available civil and criminal penalties for the defendant's conduct. The Gore majority refused to set a clear-cut rule regarding the amount of punitive damages permissible in a civil case. Scholars predicted the Supreme Court's future review of an award would involve a tort action with no federal or constitutional issue present in the case aside from the size of the award of punitive damages...